Leaving Mr. Hutton’s office, Richard walked down the hallway toward the school gate.
Evelyn waved at him from the line at the school bus stop, her braids whipping back and forth in the wind.
He shouted over to his sister, "I’m going to be home late today! You go on ahead!"
"The library again?"
"Yeah."
"Are you planning to move into the library lately?"
"Almost."
The girl shot him a glare before being swept onto the school bus by the crowd.
Before the doors closed, she stuck her head out the window. "Be back before dark!"
Richard gave her a wave and turned toward the library.
A few students were scattered across the first and second floors studying, and a librarian was checking out books behind the counter.
The third floor was completely empty.
Just like before, the fluorescent lights hummed, and the faulty one flickered twice before going out again.
He walked over to the section of shelves between Geography and Agriculture, then squatted down and began to take stock.
There were twenty-six books in total, all of varying sizes and thicknesses.
Some had exquisite bindings, some had cracked spines, and on others, the titles on the covers had been worn away completely.
Their publication dates ranged from the New Calendar year of 1790 to 1860, a span of nearly seventy years.
Richard first did a quick screening.
He took out each book and flipped to the table of contents or the last few pages, looking for appendices, non-body text, or paragraphs with unusual density.
After excluding the obviously legitimate academic texts—those with proper citation formats, clear footnotes, and no suspicious markings—eleven books remained.
Of the eleven, three immediately felt wrong the moment he opened them.
In the first, the footnote numbering skipped on several pages. Blank numbers wouldn’t appear out of nowhere; it was either a typesetting error or an intentional omission.
In a normal academic publication, it would be the former. On this shelf, it had to be treated as the latter.
The second was even more obvious. In one Chapter, the first letter of each paragraph combined to form a short phrase.
An acrostic—one of the oldest and simplest methods of encryption.
The third had two pages of handwritten supplements tucked into its appendix. The handwriting was completely different from the printed text, and the ink was a different color.
Richard pulled the three books from the shelf, stacked them on the floor, and began to inspect them one by one.
From his experience with Mr. Hutton’s book, *On the Organizational Forms of Early Agricultural Communities in the Western Continent*, he had now developed a complete decryption process.
First, confirm the level of encryption. Then, peel it back layer by layer using comparison charts and etymology manuals. Finally, cross-verify the results.
The first book took about forty minutes. He could make out that it was roughly about the use of mineral mediums in rituals.
’Useful, but not a priority.’ He stopped deciphering it once he understood the general gist.
After he solved the acrostic in the second book, it pointed to a specific paragraph on a certain page of the main text.
On the surface, the passage discussed the hunting rituals of the Northern Forest region, but in reality, if you took every fifth word, they strung together to describe the Path of Burning Blood.
’It has reference value, but it’s not for me.’
The Path of Burning Blood was too radical. The introductory training methods described in the text included extreme alternations between Ice Water Breath Holding and Explosive Breathing. His body couldn’t handle it.
He carefully turned to the two inserted pages in the third book and moved the desk lamp closer to get a better look.
The handwriting was neat but minuscule, written with a dip pen. The ink had faded to a brownish color, suggesting it was at least several decades old.
The content spanned only two pages, but it was incredibly dense.
The first line read: "Aurea Via— Fundamenta Respirationis Primae.
(Golden Path—Foundations of the Introductory Breathing Technique.)"
Richard’s fingers trembled slightly.
He glanced up at the window. The sky was completely dark.
The lights on the third floor were still humming, casting a white glow that stretched his shadow long across the bookshelves.
He lowered his head and continued reading.
The text described the most basic introductory Breathing Technique of the Golden Path. It had no name; the entire text referred to it only as the "introductory Breathing Technique."
The steps contained no esoteric descriptions, nor anything like "opening the Ren and Du Meridians."
The entire passage read more like a medical procedure manual:
Adjust breathing frequency, control the ratio of inhalation to exhalation, and maintain focus on the center of the chest while keeping a specific rhythm.
The last paragraph was a warning:
"The introductory Breathing Technique should not be practiced for more than three-quarters of an hour (about forty-five minutes) per day. For the first week, beginners are advised to limit practice to a quarter of an hour;
Excessive practice will lead to headaches, dizziness, and chest tightness. If tinnitus or light spots at the edge of your vision occur, stop immediately and rest by lying flat. Failure to do so may result in mild shock."
’Pragmatic, safe, and with clear limits. Just what you’d expect from a Cultivation Technique derived from medicine.’
No matter how hard you pushed, the worst that could happen was mild shock. It was nothing compared to the Path of Burning Blood, where you could literally suffocate or freeze to death. No wonder it was the preferred introductory method for most legitimate organizations.
Richard read the two handwritten pages from beginning to end three times. After confirming he had memorized every word, he closed the book and returned it to its original spot.
He didn’t take the book with him. After all, there wasn’t much content to record this time.
Taking one book could be passed off as borrowing, but taking several would draw attention.
’If the books stay on the shelf, I can always come back to consult them later.’
Richard stood up and stretched, a series of cracks running through his joints.
He glanced at his wrist to check the time... ’Damn, it’s already past seven.’
The last school bus left at six-thirty. He hadn’t noticed the library’s closing announcement at all; they probably didn’t come up to the third floor to clear it out.
Outside the window, the night was thick, and the streetlights were sparsely lit.
It was over three miles from the school to his home, a walk of more than half an hour.
Walking during the day was good exercise, but it was a different story after dark.
Brighton Old Town wasn’t particularly safe at night, and there were plenty of petty thieves and crooks.
’In my past life, I could walk around at night without a care. The motherland had comprehensive public facilities and the Skynet surveillance system. In this life, I don’t have that kind of confidence.’
He grabbed his schoolbag, went downstairs, and was hit by a blast of cold wind as he pushed open the library’s side door.
The campus was completely empty, with only the guardhouse window still lit.
Richard hunched his shoulders against the cold and walked toward the school gate.
The old guard poked half his head out the window, muttered something, and then pulled it back in.
A Stone Griffin perched atop the gatepost, bird droppings on its wings gleaming white in the moonlight.
Just as he stepped out of the school gate, he saw a vintage car parked under a streetlight.
Spoke wheels, whitewall tires, and a gooseneck lamp embedded on each side of the windshield—features found only on top-of-the-line sedans.
The car sat quietly under the streetlight, completely out of place with the drab streetscape around it, like a pampered hunting dog tied up at the entrance to a vegetable market.
The car window was quickly rolled down, revealing a pretty, somewhat familiar face.
It was Grey.
She wasn’t wearing a braid today. Her chestnut hair fell over her shoulders, mostly gathered by the collar of her scarf.
The girl’s blue eyes seemed even brighter at night than during the day, and her lips had a hint of pale pink, as if she were wearing lip balm.
"Richard," she greeted him.
"Grey?" Richard stopped under the streetlight. "What are you still doing at school?"
"I stayed late to catch up on some homework. When I came out, I saw the lights were still on on the third floor of the library."
She closed her book and got out of the car.
"Not many Greenwood students stay late, so I guessed it might be you."
She said it naturally, as if it were just a chance encounter.
But Richard noticed that the dew on the car’s hood had already condensed into droplets. The car had been parked here for at least half an hour.

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